An up-to-date list of workshops can be seen on the left of this screen. Please click on the workshop that interests you for full details, including dates, locations and payment options. If you have any query, please don’t hesitate to contact me via contact@nquentinwoolf.co.uk
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24th August 2010
“I have several books and websites bookmarked on self-publishing, so I was hoping that N Quentin Woolf’s workshops on Though the workshop lasted two hours, I could have stayed all night. The evening felt more like a cosy chat with a friend rather than a workshop, helped by the small group of attendees and the atmospheric location. I left inspired enough to re-visit my self-publishing books previously gathering dust on my bookshelf. I look forward to attending more of N Quentin Woolf’s workshops, and I suggest anyone thinking of self-publishing sign-up quickly for the next ones. I assure you, you will not be disappointed.” I look forward to attending more of your events. Ola Fagbohun of DiverseTraveller.com
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Kyle Wallace, author of Dial M for Mascara, was on fine form again this week as he returned to Tiffinbites to talk about Storming Amazon. One week previously, he’d been discussing the ins and outs of self-publishing; working on the presumption that his audience now had the published book in hand Kyle this week led them step-by-step through the Amazon jungle, highlighting the many opportunities there are to make your book a success. But this makes it sound rather more mundane that it actually was. In a previous life, Kyle was a magician, and it’s easy to see how years of thinking wee outside the box informed his approach to the sales and distribution of books. Indeed, listening to Kyle unveil the process he used was exactly like watching a magic trick be explained, and his approach was carefully thought out dynamite-effective and simple. Now, I couldn’t promise that his method would work for everybody, but, rather than simply make assertions, Kyle did talk attendees through the reasons behind each stage of choices so that they could customise the idea.
The evening was full of valuable stuff; it made one properly consider a number of Amazonian features that can all too easily be taken for granted. Put it like this; if in the future I were planning to self-publish a new book onto Amazon, I would most definitely follow the steps outlined by Kyle, with every confidence that they would make my book sell more copies, achieve a high exposure, and generally improve my life.
We’re hoping to make the transcripts of this week’s talk, and last week’s available for sale. If you’re interested in these, and would like notification when they’re ready, please drop us an email at kyle@nquentinwoolf.co.uk
On Thursday August 12th, it was my pleasure to host the first of two talks given by the author Kyle Wallace about the ins and outs of self-publishing. Thanks to the generosity of those lovely people at our venue Tiffinbites, we were poppadom happy as Kyle launched into an engaging, honest and fuss-free explanation of how to take your book from final draft to bookshelf. As we know, those in the literary world are not always renowned for their stage presence, however, as an ex-magician and stand-up comic, Kyle had no problem holding his own. Kyle used the lessons learnt the hard way when he self-published his debut novel Dial M for Mascara, to deliver an engaging, thoughtful and extremely informative hour and a half of information gems and insider advice. From page layout to pricing, spine design to Amazon-readiness, Kyle was generous with his knowledge and flagged up a great many potential pitfalls for the newcomer to self publishing.
As attendees discovered, there is a great deal more to self-publishing than one might imagine. Throughout the talk, Kyle kept one eye firmly on the bottom line, offering great tips (all field-tested) on how to bring down suppliers’ prices, how to think through your cover design, and even how to sell copies of your book using the dedication’s page. Along with the factsheet of shortcuts for obtaining ISBN numbers and registering your book correctly, Kyle addressed those perplexing matters such as how to ensure that your book is properly registered with National Libraries, and how the colour of your cover can cost you more in postage. Feedback from the evening was very positive and we’re looking forward to Thursday the 19th of August when Kyle’s subject will be how to crack that massive, yet daunting, sales portal: Amazon.
I normally ask my students for feedback after they finish the course so that I can keep on improving what I offer.
After the Sunday course that finished on August 8th, I hadn’t yet got around to asking for feedback when this came through:
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9th August 2010 Dear Nikk I just wanted to give you some feedback and say how pleased I am to have taken your course. It started off as very affordable, and quickly turned out to be excellent value. I have enjoyed every single minute of the programme. I have been made to think, to engage with my own writing processes, encouraged, supported, made to laugh, invited to contribute to my colleagues’ work and development in meaningful, constructive and ego-free ways. The feedback I got from others in the group was really astute, helpful and considered. The environment your teaching style creates makes for hard work and commitment as well as freedom and responsibility for our own contributions to the group. Perhaps most significantly, what I am left with to share with others is a predominant sense of your generosity – I always felt you were genuinely giving us important, relevant and detailed information, you were willing to be flexible and even if I was afraid, nervous or self conscious, I never doubted the safety of the space I was in. The written and face to face feedback was always honest, positive and much more than I would have expected for the money I paid. I know people at university who get less attention from tutors. Clearly you have a special gift. My experience was that your facilitation skills are excellent and your professionalism means that not only learning, but a sense of value is created for and with the group. It really is a special gift to support peoples’ learning and development in an unknown and mixed ability group. I felt included, present and equally involved and that all of us were participating at all times. I thoroughly enjoyed the course and hope to be able to write more, commit more to my writing practice and make really good use of the invaluable skills and tips you have shared with us. Your sentence construction is quite sophisticated, your handwriting could do with some work but your grammar is usually good. Well Done. Yours Sincerely, Charlie
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Thursday the 8th of July saw the performance of Not Me Now at Sadler’s Wells as part of a festival themed around movement and spoken words. The audio track for Not Me Now is a combination of music by Canadian composer Jack Hurd combined with the voice of Laurie Lewis reading my script. Her performance is effortlessly poignant. You can hear it for yourself and see the debut of the piece (from a couple of years back) using the link here.
It’s by no means a cheery piece, dealing as it does with old age, the onset of dementia, and failing and false memories. It’s not always easy to gauge its success from the audience’s immediate reaction. However I think it went over well: after the performance, the dancers reported the audience members approached them to talk about their experiences of the themes of Not Me Now. The Tempered Body dancers were reliably brilliant. Johnny Autin, Mel Simpson and Jose Campos reprised their performances, whilst Pauline Huguet took on the role previously performed by Amy Mathieson and made it her own.
It’s no little feat to visibly age by fifty years as the music grows discordant and the side lights falter. But it’s only that compression of time that makes it seem remarkable. One of the recurrent comments in the feedback on Not Me Now is how many people have seen that same transformation take place in people they love and have loved, and the excruciating length of time it took.
Kate Rowles’ new 30 minute social documentary film ‘Musical Minds’ will be
premiered at the short film night at London’s Candid Galleries in the
Candid Projection Room:
Filmed during her 4 month artist residency at a community centre for
people with mental health difficulties in Ilford, Essex, Musical Minds
charts the personal motivations and musical aspirations of service users
attending the community centre’s music group. Hidden talents emerge as they
sing about their lives, and the important role such community centres play
in the everyday lives of those with mental health difficulties soon becomes
apparent.
Date: Thursday 15 April 2010
Time: 7.00pm
Location: Candid Galleries, Candid Projection Room, 3 Torrens Street,
Angel (directly behind the Angel tube station), London.
Entry Price: Free! ALL ARE WELCOME!
Websites: http://www.candidarts.com/cpr/
http://www.candidarts.com/
For more information about Kate Rowles Artist Filmmaker please visit
www.katerowles.com
Of all the editions of The Arts Show we’ve done so far, this week’s was far and away the one that left me feeling most like a listener rather than the presenter. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as though previous guests have been hard work or anything – quite the reverse, but when a show comes along in which the conversation flows, the guests are lovely, warm people who read poems to you, and the musical acts are of the sort of high calibre they were this week – well, it’s a treat.
Julia Bird
The thing that impressed me most about Julia Bird, apart from her beautifully observed and very funny poetry, was her sheer endurance. This is a director whose work is taking her to all points of the compass, I think I remember that Newcastle followed Exeter on her list of gigs, and in between putting in the miles she is also responsible for getting the shows up and running each time at a new venue with its own quirks and challenges. Julia’s a believer in high production values too, an outlook which no doubt does nothing to ease her workload. When I asked Julia whether she does the driving too she said she does not – did I detect a flicker of guilt there? I fancy so. Julia’s career has been almost entirely about promoting poetry, her present UK wide tour aims to introduce new audiences to poetry, a goal which I am sure will be realised. If it isn’t, it won’t be for want of trying.
Kate Rowles
I have to confess when I first came across Kate Rowles I was somewhat sceptical about her artistic choices. From the descriptions I’d read it sounded rather like an artist passing home movies off as something of a higher order, but perhaps that’s the philistine in me reacting.
Why shouldn’t the genre of the home film have aspirations of its own? Perhaps a drip feed of You’ve Been Framed style blunders has convinced us that home film is the medium of the buffoon or the sloshed wedding guest and no more. Kate Rowles aims to change all that and is nine films into a project that, as soon as she started to explain it, convinced me that there is hope after all. Her projects are carefully structured in advance, are full of clever conceits and stem from a love for her family that is simple and sound. Dad has even made his directorial debut recently. The home movies – historical documents on the personal level – as Kate sees them are best described in her own words. Well worth a listen, but then I would say that, wouldn’t I?
Jasmine Cooray
There was more poetry from my final guest Jasmine Cooray whom I recently ran into at The Book Club Boutique, Soho. At that gig she was reading How The Tiger Got Its Stripes, and that poem, like the ones she shared on this week’s show drew heavily from some of the darker parts of personal experience, weaving pain and hope together with the outlook of children to great effect. It would be strange not to remark that at the age of 23 Jasmine has already trained as an actor, established a series of London writing workshops, founded a popular poetry night in Brighton and is now channelling her artistic work into becoming an art therapist – there’s nothing like keeping busy. Jasmine’s poetry is brilliant, and so too is her telling of it – she really understands how to engage an audience and does so without the use of a script. The way her eye language connects with her listeners adds a whole extra layer to an already layered piece of writing. If you get a chance to see Jasmine live, perhaps at her Brighton gig, Floetics, do jump on it.
So I was basically entranced, as you may be able to tell, by the guests this week and then came the musical offerings from World Service Project and Ola Eysymontt. Each piece mature and sophisticated, the product of talent, graft and inspiration – but music is never well served by being reduced to words – do give it a listen.
RECITALS / READINGS
If you are interested in hearing about one-off or regular readings of short stories or poetry, book signings, written word performances and other literary events, please mail contact@nquentinwoolf.co.uk , telling me so; I’ll try to keep you updated.
LITERARY EVENTS
I co-ordinate an occasional calendar of readings, book launches, signings (many free) etc in Shoreditch, East London. A regularly updated diary of events is available ; if you are interested in attending, reading from, or launching, a book, or would like to receive the email bulletin of new events, please email contact@nquentinwoolf.co.uk saying so.
Children of Comoros
Whilst it’s not unusual to welcome onto the show guests whose artistic practice extends across several platforms, it’s less commonplace to meet artists whose work is unaffected and commercially viable, however this was exactly the deal this week on The Arts Show as I met Paul Skawinski and Mick Frangou. Paul, or Paulski, as he prefers to be known, has arrived here on these shores from Poland and his journey to London has been Whittington-esque: he’s been homeless and penniless (at one point he had to sell his guitar for food money) but has unswervingly followed his ideals and is now establishing quite a fan base for his fusion music (I use the term fusion here not in the jazz sense but literally, for it is a fusion of influences as diverse as grunge, jazz and electronica, defying any ready-made description). Paulski himself is a likeable enough cove, rocking up to the studios in attire that was one part romany to two parts buccaneer.
Paulski
Paul is very much the sort of person with whom one might while away the odd hour or three enjoying good music, looking at abstract art and sticking it to The Man. These things can go either way of course, but I don’t think there’s much affectation with Paulski.
There does seem to be, however, a need to knock down walls, whether the barriers between musical styles, hierarchical structures (“I always seem to say the wrong thing” Paul confesses) or the line between found items and art. Happily he also seems to have stumbled upon a way to turn his work into something commercial. In the interview we discussed the, at first surprising, but with a moment’s thought, obvious application for Paulski’s slide work, one that could be a nice little earner.
Sugardrum
Mick too has, by luck it would seem, discovered a relatively lucrative outlet for his natural artistic compulsion. The combination of silent film and live music holds wide appeal as it turns out, and whilst I am sure that Mick would be putting music to Nosferatu irrespective of financial considerations, it seems there’s a quid or two in it as well. We talked plenty about the musical side of things in the show and indeed this week seemed to be an almost entirely musical event, with great contributions from Children of Comoros and Sugardrum thrown into the mix. But I was especially interested in what Mick had to say about his approach towards visual art.
Ballpoint
He’s long been a biro artist and the more I thought about what that means, the more I realised how many of us instinctually take the first step in that career path without thinking about it while we’re on the phone or in a meeting, not that I’m suggesting Mick’s art, with its cruciform theme, is doodling – far from it – but in the same way that many of us like to hum a tune, but only a few go on to training our voices and learning to fully express ourselves in song, so even fewer develop this particular art form using these particular materials. I wonder why that should be – maybe the implement in question, the ball point pen, is so strongly associated with the prosaicness of work and study and shopping lists that it seems silly to make art from it.
Mick Frangou
So in fact maybe a connection between these two artists which is stronger that their having happened upon commercial viability, is their ability to make beautiful art from the most commonplace of items, bits of sellotape, ball point pens, and their willingness to fuse musical styles in an exciting and fresh way that celebrates, rather than swallows, up the constituent influences – and is mighty easy on the ears to boot.
Listen to this edition of the Arts Show
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